THE AMERICAN JOURNEY OF GIORGIO BASSANI In Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Giorgio Bassani's Birth

Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 7:00PM

THE AMERICAN JOURNEY OFGIORGIO BASSANI

In Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Giorgio Bassani's Birth

The Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington, in collaboration with Georgetown University and the University of Mississippi, present a conference by Valerio Cappozzo in dialogue with Laura Benedetti in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Giorgio Bassani's birth.

Giorgio Bassani travelled several times to the United States, first as President of the association Italia Nostra, when he presented the exhibition “Italia da salvare”, then for the publication of the English translations of his novels, and finally as Visiting Professor of Italian at various universities in California, Illinois, and Indiana. Lezioni americane di Giorgio Bassani, recently edited by Valerio Cappozzo (Ravenna: Giorgio Pozzi, 2016), focuses on this little-known chapter in Bassani’s life while celebrating the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth.

In a letter that he wrote in 1976 from Indiana, Bassani referred to these trips as some of the best moments of his life, that also inspired some among the most successful poems of the collection In Gran Segreto (1978), which can be read as a poetic journal of his American journey.

This talk is dedicated to Bassani in America. While dealing about the author’s gifts to his students, it will also evoke the role that the United States played as a source of inspiration for the Italian author.